Life On The Edge Smithfield, Queensland, Australia
By
Stinky.Cheese on 23-Apr-13. Waypoint GA6306
Cache Details
| Difficulty: | |
| Terrain: | |
| Type: | Traditional |
| Container: | Small |
| Coordinates: | S16° 49.810' E145° 42.071' (WGS 84) |
| 55K 361615E 8138778N (UTM) | |
| Elevation: | 5 m |
| Local Government Area: | Cairns |
/145.701183,-16.830167,14/400x200?access_token=pk.eyJ1IjoiY2F1Z2h0YXR3b3JrIiwiYSI6ImNqa2l4ZzNzMDE5bjgzdm1sZGpuODF1Mm0ifQ.q8YMzVyzDJJlJHHV8EMjwQ)
Description
Cattana Wetlands was originally a sugarcane farm owned by Franco Cattana. Afterwards the site was used as a sand mining quarry resulting in several fresh & saltwater lakes. It was purchased by the Mulgrave Shire Council in 1993 primarily to protect the 30 hectares of lowland rainforest on the western end of the site. This forest, described as the Feather Palm Forest, is a remnant of a once extensive forest type that is now confined to only a few patches in the Cairns region.
Since this time, Council has planted over 70,000 native plants and undertaken extensive weed removal enabling existing water bird populations to flourish. As part of the 150th anniversary of Queensland celebrations, Council & the Queensland State Government each committed $1.5 million to the rehabilitation of the site. The works program included the construction of boardwalks, walking tracks, bird hides & viewing platforms, picnic areas, interpretative signs, car park & toilet facilities.
In addition to the amazing wetland habitat, Cattana Wetlands also harbours an impressive range of North Queensland wildlife & significant plant communities.
Open every day of the year from 5.30am to 7.00pm
Note: The park may be closed at different times during the wet season.
The cache is a round black plastic 250ml container.
Room for some small swaps.
Contains log & pencil.
Hints
N pbhcyr bs zrgref gb gur yrsg bs gur OOD nern. Va gur urneg bs n Cncreonex gerr. |
|
Decode |
Logs
I had a nice walk into the absolutely deserted wetlands, I had no problems finding this well hidden cache, many layers of bark down. Then two local lads turned up for a drink and some fishing. They soon were concentrating on the water and I was able to replace the cache. All is well here.
Thanks for the cache Stinky.Cheese
TNLN
Albida
A tricky find as the geocache was under years of falled bark and deep, deep down. Initally we looked around and still came back to the same tree so we dug down into the tree fork and pulled out all of the bark, eventually revealing the geocache. Nicely done and great area for a walk (I assume there are no crocs in here or if there were, we missed them all).
Took nothing, left nothing.
Thanks for this geocache experience here for us today.
*Overall Experience: 3*
GAFF 1
Many TFTC Stinky Cheese. This is a lovely place well worth visiting.
All done.
Cache back in place. The first logsheet is pretty tattered and would be difficult to write on, but as it holds the history of the cache, I dried it out too, and put it in the original ziplock bag so the entries can be read. It's in the new ziplock bag with the log sheets ready for the next finder.
Kidlets loved the area and had a wonderful time walking, collecting leaves and rocks, butterfly chasing and bush turkey spotting. We have lived here a long time, but never been here before. Was a lovely place to hide a cache, but doesn't appear to be there anymore. Will return tho and have a look on the right side, just incase. By the time we finished the left side, kids were buggered.
log dry and in good condition. No pencil and forgot my own so did not sign.
PS. The Log is wet and hard to write on it.
While looking for the answers to some questions we noticed this little GCA cache....good grief....it hasn't been found for over two years
. Surely it must be gone by now, but we definitely wanted to check it out.As we approached GZ we were ver disapppointed to find a pair of muggles sitting on the nearby bench
. We walked on by to continue searching for our answers with the plan to return to GZ later if time permitted. We were delighted to solve, and actually find the nearby mystery cache but were careful not to sign the log intending to return on or after 14th Aug
.We then returned to GZ and were able to make a muggle free search for this one....thank goodness there was no one around as approaching GZ sounds like a herd of elephants with all the crackly dry leaves underfoot
Geohubby scratched around at GZ and eventually uncovered this nice, but lonely little hide beneath two years of debris
Surprisngly all is still in good, reasonably dry condition
Many thanks Stinky Cheese for allowing us is great little find
First to log online.... But 4th on he log sheet
quick look in the area today as we have just moved hereTFTC
